Female Ascetics in Hinduism

Female Ascetics in Hinduism LYNN TESKEY DENTON - Female Ascetics in Hinduism SUNY series in Hindu Studies Wendy Doniger, editor Female Ascetics - in Hinduism Lynn Teskey Denton STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS Back cover photo by Emily Lynn Denton. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2004 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 Production by Marilyn P. Semerad Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Denton, Lynn Tesky, 1949–1995. Female ascetics in Hinduism / Lynn Teskey Denton ; [edited by Steven Collins]. p. cm. — (SUNY series in Hindu studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6179-3 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-7914-6180-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Hindu women—Religious life—India—Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) 2. Asceticism—Hinduism. 3. Ascetics—India—Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) 4. Monastic and religious life (Hinduism)—India—Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) I. Collins, Steven, 1951– II. Title. III. Series. BL1237.46.D46 2004 294.5'447082—dc22 2004045335 10987654321 - Contents Foreword vii by Steven Collins Introduction 1 1. The Religious Life of Woman-as-householder 23 2. The Woman Who Is Not a Householder: Widowhood, Unmarriageability, and Female Asceticism 41 3. Unity and Diversity I: Basic Terminology 57 4. Unity and Diversity II: Sectarian Affiliation, Spiritual Path, and Ascetic Mode 77 5. Socioreligious Aspects of Female Asceticism in Varanasi 103 6. Sainthood, Society, and Transcendence: Legends and Poetry of Women Saints 139 Notes 167 Glossary of Hindi and Sanskrit Terms 189 Bibliography 191 Supplemental Bibliography 203 by Meena Khandelwal Index 209 v - Foreword Lynn Shirley Teskey Denton was born on January 7 1949 in Vernon, British Columbia, and grew up in Ontario on a farm in Prince Edward County, the eldest of seven children. She completed a BA in Religious Studies (1972) and an MA in Anthropology (1973) at McMaster University. At the Institute of Social Anthropology at Oxford University, she was awarded a BLitt (1974) and an MLitt (1975), and completed all requirements for a DPhil except the dis- sertation. Between 1976 and 1981 she spent over two years in India, mainly in Benares, conducting fieldwork on female ascetics. During this time she also taught several sessions at McMaster University. She was Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion, Concordia University, from 1984 to 1989, when she re- signed for reasons of health. She married Frank Denton in 1986 and in 1990 gave birth to Emily Lynn Denton. After many years of struggling with ill health, she died of leukemia in 1995. During her life she published only one article, (Denton 1991). After her death Frank Denton and a number of scholars who knew her work wanted to see as much of it published as could be sal- vaged from the papers she left. It has taken an unfortunately long time to see this project through to fruition. In late 1997 the Com- mittee on Southern Asian Studies at the University of Chicago kindly agreed to provide funds to proceed with the task. Sandra K. Mulholland did most of the typing, working from computer disks, manuscripts, and typescripts. She was able to use her own fieldwork knowledge of Nåth ascetics in North India, and of the Hindi lan- guage, to do so. The format of the book is my responsibility. It was the understandable feeling at State University of New York Press vii viii Foreword that the remaining materials contained too much overlap to be made immediately into a publishable book, and so I have had to do more rewriting than was foreseen or wanted. I have tried to rep- resent Lynn’s ideas as faithfully as I am able. Nothing in this book is, intentionally, my own. Since we cannot know what the final drafts of Lynn’s work would have looked like, we cannot know whether she would have approved of their being published in this form. There is, however, a clear consistency in a number of themes running through this book which suggests that the main ideas are presented here in something like the way she might have wanted them. The Introduction, chapter 1, and much of chapter 2 seem to have been in fairly final form for presentation as the DPhil thesis: they were revised in 1992. Chapters 2 and 3 combine a computer disk version dated 1987 with a handwritten revision of 1992. Chap- ter 4 seems much the same as chapter 4 of the thesis was intended to be; this version was prepared as a separate typewritten paper for a conference on “Ascetics and Asceticism in India” at the De- partment of Religion, University of Florida, in 1988. Chapter 5 was probably given in Oxford in 1987, although this is not certain. The appendix to this chapter is taken from a paper delivered in 1987 to the Department of Religion, Concordia University. Chapter 6 was also delivered to that department, in 1984. What is missing is much of the empirical data (some of which exists in manuscript and/or typescript form, but which is not comprehensible to anyone who did not gather it), and the life histories of individual female ascetics to which the book refers, but which Lynn was not granted the time to write. It is also to be regretted that the large number of slides she took, the importance of which is discussed in the Introduction, has proved impossible to reproduce here. Meena Khandelwal has generously compiled an annotated bibliography of relevant work that has appeared since Lynn’s illness and death. Given the nature of Lynn’s work as she left it, there is perforce a certain amount of repetition across the chapters of this book. But given the originality of her research, its extraordinary sense of nuance and attention to detail, it is useful to be reminded now and again of the main outlines of her analytical model. Although the fieldwork was done some twenty years ago, aside from Meena Khandelwal’s recent (2003) book, there is still nothing comparable to Lynn’s work in the empirical study of female ascetics in Hindu- ism, nor indeed in the sociological analysis of Hindu asceticism in general. It is hoped that this book retains something of the vivacity of her writing, the acuity of her analysis, and the sympathetic humanity she brought to all her scholarly work. Foreword ix In a number of places Lynn thanked those who helped her in her research (research assistants, named and unnamed, are discussed in the Introduction). In chapter 5 she wrote: “This [book] is based on the results of twenty-five months of fieldwork undertaken in Varanasi between 1976 and 1981, funded, in part, by the Canada Council. I wish to thank Professor Baidyanath Saraswati for his initial encouragement and advice, and Swami Sadånanda Giri for some major historical and sociological insights. For invaluable research assistance and access to the akhårå subculture, I am in- debted to Bhairav Muni Udås¥.” Steven Collins - Introduction This book is about female asceticism in the Hindu tradition and, more particularly, about the female ascetic community in the North Indian city of Benares (Varanasi). In Hinduism asceticism is believed to be both morally and ritually efficacious; it is a value that permeates the ideology, af- fecting the spiritual status and daily religious activities of all members of society. Practices such as fasting and celibacy are required elements of a wide range of religious rituals, from the ancient sacrificial rites performed by the priestly elite on behalf of their wealthy sponsors to the multitude of popular rites performed by members of all classes of society today. In the course of a lifetime the average householder will thus have undertaken, on more than one occasion and for varying durations, time-hon- ored acts of self-denial and abstention, but they remain house- holders first and foremost, ordinary members of society whose asceticism is periodic and circumscribed; their primary identity is not ascetic. This book examines institutionalized asceticism. It deals with specialist, professional ascetics, who by virtue of a recognized ritual of initiation have acquired an identity that is first and foremost ascetic; who lead lifestyles that in some dramatic way evince a rejection by renunciation of the values of the householder and a real or symbolic separation from householder society; who claim affiliation with a spiritual lineage founded by one of the many preceptors who have emerged over the centuries; and who recog- nize as their primary home one of the thousands of ascetic estab- lishments that are to be found throughout the country. 1 2 Female Ascetics in Hinduism Forms of institutionalized asceticism have long been a feature of religious life in India. Passages in the early Indian texts and records of Greek travelers to the subcontinent between the sixth and third centuries BCE testify to well-established ascetic person- ages and practices during the first millennium. The often aston- ished accounts of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims between the fifth and seventh centuries of our era and of a wide range of European trad- ers, adventurers, and missionaries from at least the seventeenth century onward testify to the proliferation of asceticism. And today, even the casual observer is impressed by its persistence, for one cannot enter a major Hindu center—the sacred city of Benares is perhaps the foremost instance—without seeing ascetics in great numbers and of a remarkable variety.

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